PESTALOZZI, EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT 131 various branches of natural history, but without any particular attention either to classification or terminology. He was conversant with the ordinary numerical opera- tions, but he would have had difficulty to get through a really long sum in multiplication or division, and had probably never tried to work out a problem in geometry."1 And in spite of his understanding of "the mind of man and the laws of its development, human affections, and the art of arousing and ennobling them," l he would probably have been unable to obtain a school, had it not been for certain influential friends in the town of Burg- dorf . They secured a position for him, first in the school for the tenants and poorer people, and later in the ele- mentary school of the citizens. In Burgdori, Pestalozzi "followed without any plan where he con- the empirical method interrupted at Stanz," and "sought developed by every means to bring the elements of reading and arith- Ws metllod- metic to the greatest simplicity, and by grouping them psychologically, enable the child to pass easily and surely from the first step to the second, and from the second to the third, and so on."2 He further worked out and He taught graduated his £ syllabaries/ and invented the idea of large through the movable letters for teaching the children to read. Lan- guage exercises were given his pupils by means of exam- ining the number, form, position, and color of the designs, 1 Charles Monnard, Histoire de la Suisse, continuation de Mtitler. 2 See footnote on p. 128.